


I Hold With Those Who Favor Fire

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Kidnapping, Lies, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 07:08:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: “I’ll catch you up,” the Phantom said. He had stepped away from Raoul now, and begun to pace the small chamber, lantern revealing it to be barely six by eight feet. “Last night you stupidly blundered into the middle of a discussion between Miss Daae and myself. We were discussing our future together when you showed up. She had her doubts. I told her that if she would stay with me as my bride I would release you, and if she did not I would kill you as an intruder.”Raoul licked his lips. “What happened then?”The Phantom shrugged and smiled a crooked little smile. “Well, monsieur, I’ll let you guess.”Easy enough. Raoul fingered the chains. “You broke your promise to her to release me.”"Mm."Or, the one with a kidnapping and its aftermath.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a Robert Frost poem, "Fire and Ice". It goes like this:
> 
> "Some say the world will end in fire,  
> Some say in ice.  
> From what I've tasted of desire  
> I hold with those who favor fire.  
> But if it had to perish twice,  
> I think I know enough of hate  
> To say that for destruction ice  
> Is also great  
> And would suffice. "
> 
> Is it related to this story? Not by much. But it may come up at times.  
> (Aside from that, all I have to say is this is kind of fucked up so forgive me but I hope you have fun. Also, please let me know in the comments if I have to warn for anything else in the tags, especially if you think this heads into non-con territory, because it's definitely on the edge.)

It was confusing. Everything was confusing. The floor was too dry beneath his feet, too cold. There was metal enclosing his wrists, metal enclosing his ankles. His boots were gone. His coat was gone. The air was cold and damp, but it did not stink the way the canal had. Everything was utterly dark.

Was he awake yet?

Probably, he thought to himself. Probably. When you started wondering if you were dreaming it was a sure sign you weren’t. And his dreams tended to be visual, fast paced and bright. He dreamed of naval missions and ballets and dancing devils. He did not dream of cold, black stone. He didn’t dream of the unidentifiable slime on the walls—lichen? Excrement? He didn’t know. He tried to sit away from the wall, but the cuffs on his wrists and ankles were connected to chains about two feet long that were fastened to the wall quite firmly.

He curled up into a ball. The chains clinked.

What now?

And what before?

Before…the canal, the portcullis. Christine had been wearing a white dress even though she’d left the stage in peach and black lace. There had been a veil draped over her hair. She had looked lovely. That part might have been a dream. He remembered she had been crying and screaming at the same time. He remembered air seeping out of his lungs, and the voice which he had only ever heard from a distance booming close to his ear. Deafening, and yet even that sound had faded slowly away.

Now, there was no sound. His own voice echoed off the walls if he spoke, but although he called out Christine’s name he could think of nothing else to say. Soundless, lightless. He might have died and gone to hell. Most said hell was fire, but he’d heard theories of ice.

He shivered.

And then, a slight creak and a slight clunk. He called out. “Christine?”

A light appeared, the dim light of a lantern. It was still too much for his eyes. He squinted up at the person carrying it, a person dressed all in black. Christine should have been wearing white still, unless more time had passed than he believed. “Christine?” he asked again, quietly.

Laughter jumped out at him from above, raucously joyful. He winced away, then, remembering his dignity (he was a Vicomte and a patron of the opera house, not a knave), he slowly got to his feet, although the chains on his arms meant he remained somewhat stooped. “Phantom.”

“Indeed,” the Phantom said. When Raoul squinted now, he could just make out the white of the half mask. “Although I’m flattered you found me so lovely.”

“Where is Christine?” Raoul asked. He braced his hands against the wall, slimy as it was. It helped him to stand a bit more firmly, even if he was well aware he had no real ground here.

“Not here,” the Phantom said. “So why does it matter?”

He grabbed Raoul’s left hand. Raoul instinctively went very still, but the Phantom didn’t really do anything. He simply touched Raoul’s palm, then felt the handcuff around his wrist. Checking to see if it was the right size, perhaps.

“She can’t protect you,” he mused. “How does that feel?”

“Where is she?”

The Phantom met Raoul’s eyes for the first time since his arrival. “Not here.” He let Raoul’s hand drop, and Raoul barely stopped it from slapping hard against the wall, pulled down by the weight of the chain. “You don’t remember much of last night, do you? Of course, you were unconscious for much of it.” He shook his head. “The rope wasn’t even that tight, and you fainted like a damsel.” A hint of a smirk appeared on his face.

Raoul held back a wince. Embarrassment was hardly the worst that could happen to him here. Still, it was humiliating and he wasn’t sure the Phantom was wrong. He’d been running on fumes last night, having slept little for the past two weeks and coming straight from a twisted path of booby traps and snares he had barely managed to evade. He’d remembered his blacking out as slow suffocation, but it could just as easily have been exhaustion. It wouldn’t have taken much.

Had he slept here, then? Tired from his labors, like a man come home to his wife after a long day’s work? He felt more rested than he had in a while, despite the chill in the air. How disgusting.

“I’ll catch you up,” the Phantom said. He had stepped away from Raoul now, and begun to pace the small chamber, lantern revealing it to be barely six by eight feet. “Last night you stupidly blundered into the middle of a discussion between Miss Daae and myself. We were discussing our future together when you showed up. She had her doubts. I told her that if she would stay with me as my bride I would release you, and if she did not I would kill you as an intruder.” He sighed. “Miss Daae is singularly attached to you, after all. Of course I would have preferred to kill you straight away.”

Raoul licked his lips. “What happened then?”

The Phantom shrugged and smiled a crooked little smile. “Well, monsieur, I’ll let you guess.”

Easy enough. Raoul fingered the chains. “You broke your promise to her to release me.”

“Mm.”

“You goddamn…” Raoul lunged at the Phantom, but couldn’t reach. The Phantom had retreated to the opposite corner of the room. He was laughing again.

“This is rich. What are you trying to do? Kill me?”

“Release her,” Raoul demanded.

“The choice was hers to make,” the Phantom said. He paused. “Do you think she should have chosen differently, then?”

“She would not have chosen to stay with you if not for me,” Raoul said. “You must know that. Please. Kill me. Only you must let her go.”

The Phantom smiled more widely than before. “You would rather die than see her mine?”

“She doesn’t love you. Staying down here will kill her,” Raoul said. “I know you have a grudge. You hate the world.” He gestured to his chest. “Torture me, kill me. I do not care. She is too pure for this place.” He coughed. The cold, no doubt. “You know that as well as I.”

The Phantom shrugged. “It was her choice, monsieur. You and I must both respect it.” He stepped closer to Raoul. The lantern shone gold on the mask. “And in the future, do not tempt me. I could kill you, you know. But I don’t think you really want to die.” He turned away. “For Christine’s sake, you should live. That much I can grant you.”

With that, he left. And again everything was dark.

* * *

 

It was hours before the Phantom came back. Long hours. Raoul became aware that he was hungry. He had been too disoriented earlier to consider food or water, but now he craved both.

Had the Phantom fed Christine? What were they doing? Did the Phantom actually intend to fetch a priest to marry them, or simply play the married couple? It seemed unclear. Raoul wasn’t sure which plan would be more delusional, but either way it would be a farce. A marriage with an unwilling bride was no true marriage. Even the Church said so.

They could get it annulled, he thought to himself. When he and Christine got out of here, if the Phantom was still living they could get the marriage annulled easily. And then he cursed himself because he was already picturing this far in the future, months or years away. The Phantom was getting to him. He and Christine had to escape now.

When the Phantom showed up that night, he brought food with him, some simple stew with a wooden spoon and a glass of milk. Raoul felt oddly thankful for the simple fare. It was comforting and warm. Even knowing the Phantom had brought it to him did not make it less satisfying.

He did not have the strength to speak until after he had eaten. But when the Phantom lingered, he said, “Is Christine well?”

The Phantom shrugged.

“Has she eaten?” Perhaps she had refused food or drink. Perhaps Raoul should have as well. “Tell me, does she cry?”

“She ate very well,” the Phantom said. “As for tears…well, one cannot judge the girl. Both men and women are lachrymose on their wedding night.”

“If you touched her…”

“I did not.” The Phantom frowned severely. “Come now. I know I am a monster in appearance. Certainly I will make no sexual advances until she is ready.”

“Your appearance.” Raoul laughed. “Monsieur OG, I think you misunderstand. Christine does not love you. It has nothing to do with your thrice-damned face.”

“Thrice-damned?”

“Once by your birth, once by your actions, and once more by me,” Raoul said. “But Christine sees the heart of things. If she fears you, she has cause.”

“I have worn the mask for her, so that she may not fear.”

“And you have chained her lover up in a dungeon,” Raoul said. “So she is right not to trust you.”

The Phantom barked out a laugh. “Ah, monsieur! So your imprisonment is the most wicked thing I have ever done?” He shook his head. “One might curse me for murder, blackmail, even torture on my blackest days. If keeping you here is my greatest sin, I am a good man indeed.”

Raoul flushed, and for once was grateful for the dark, which hid his face as well as any mask of porcelain. But he argued, “You said if she married you, I could go free.”

“I do not think she believed me in the first place.”

“Well, she was right.”

There was a pause. The Phantom leaned against the opposite wall. Raoul wondered whether there was slime on that one too, and whether it would ruin the Phantom’s clothing. He hoped it did.

“I find I cannot argue with you,” the Phantom said. “Are you finished eating?”

He was. The Phantom collected the bowl, spoon and cup. As he stepped away, Raoul grabbed his arm. “If you ever hurt her, if you ever touch her, I will kill you.”

“Brave words from a man chained to a wall,” the Phantom said. “Tell me. Do you think she belongs to you?”

Raoul hesitated.

“Is she yours? Her body, her soul? All yours, Vicomte?” The tone was almost innocently curious.

Raoul’s hands wrapped around each other. He felt the bare ring finger on his left hand. “She accepted my proposal before you even offered yours.”

“Ah, yes. And she loved you.” Now the Phantom’s tone was no longer even mock-innocent in its acidity. “But she never married you, did she? So did her body belong to you? Did you lay a claim to that?”

He stepped closer to Raoul, eyes gleaming with lantern light. “You do not answer, monsieur. Am I being too subtle for you?”

“What are you implying?” Raoul said, glaring.

“Did you fuck her?”

Raoul punched the Phantom on the left side of his face. The punch landed, to his surprise, but the Phantom sprang back before he could attempt a second, hand over his eye. Raoul strained forward, reaching, but it was too far.

The Phantom, still clutching his eye, said, “That does not really answer my question.”

“Show some respect when you speak about Christine.”

“Please. I just want to know if my wife is a virgin,” the Phantom said. “It will make things easier for us if I know, after all.” He smiled. “I promise I will not judge her. All blame I will lay at the proper feet…yours.”

Raoul gritted his teeth. “I am a gentleman.”

“I know the kind of gentlemen who frequent the opera house.”

“If you want an answer, ask Christine,” Raoul said. “I will give you none.”

The Phanom shook his head. “Really, I couldn’t possibly.”

He left then, calling over his shoulder, “You disappoint me, Raoul.”

* * *

 

It might have just been Raoul’s imagination, but the Phantom seemed to take a very long time to return. He was starving this time when the Phantom showed up, stomach squeezing itself to pieces. Punishment, he wondered? But refusing to answer a question could hardly be considered a worse crime than attempting to save Christine in the first place.

The Phantom had a bowl with him, a bowl with the top covered by a lid. But he set it down on the ground out of Raoul’s reach and grinned at Raoul, who was still sitting on the floor, too tired to want to get up. Did he want Raoul to ask for it?

“You brought me more stew,” Raoul said cautiously.

“I did,” the Phantom said. “How have you been?”

“Cold and unjustly imprisoned,” Raoul said. “How has Christine been?”

The Phantom crouched down to an eye level. “I find she’s adjusting very nicely.”

Raoul frowned. It could be a good thing, perhaps. It was better than hearing she was crying. But it would be bad if she really got used to being with the Phantom, adjusted too thoroughly. Then when the time came to escape, she might not be ready to leave.

“And I forgive you for not answering my question the other night,” the Phantom said. “You are a gentleman after all. She was a virgin.”

Raoul froze.

Was.

“She’s been warming up to me, you see,” the Phantom said. “Today we had a long talk about many things. Intimate matters, you understand. I could never reveal them to you. And then…”

He paused. His eyes were distant. When he spoke again, his voice was a bit less smug and more reminiscent. “She kissed me. On my lips. I was not wearing the mask, and she kissed me.”

Oh, Christine. How?

“I was surprised. I thought it would take longer,” the Phantom said. “But one thing led to another. After that, she wouldn’t take her hands off me, just kept touching me, stroking me and kissing me. It was a revelation to me, of course. I’d never had sex.” He smiled fondly. “She took my clothes off me without my even asking. She was not afraid of my bony shape, my wrinkles, my scars. It was as I had…”

He trailed off. Eyes refocusing on Raoul, he said, “It turns out you do not own her body after all. She does. And she gave herself to me. Completely.”

Raoul trembled.

The Phantom gently placed his hand on Raoul’s head. “Knowing that,” he said, “Knowing she is mine and will never be yours…How does that feel?”

Raoul said, “She is still not yours.”

“Oh?”

“She only gave herself to you because of your threats. Your marriage is a child’s game.” Spit was flying out of his mouth. Some of it hit the Phantom’s mask, and he didn’t flinch. “She is not your plaything! Do you understand?”

He was breathing hard.

The Phantom ruffled his hair. “I think you are the one who does not understand, monsieur. She gave herself to me. We made love. More than you will ever have from her.”

“Let me see her.”

The Phantom tutted. “Don’t be silly. She doesn’t know you’re here, after all. I just thought I would bring you the news.”

“She does not love you. She will never love you,” Raoul said. “You’ve touched an angel, and I hope you go to hell for it.”

The Phantom grabbed Raoul’s chin. “I did what you would have done, monsieur, if you could. You’re jealous. But what she gave, she gave freely.” He stood. “Now I’m afraid I must return to her. I’m a very attentive husband, you know. Caring to a fault.”

It wasn’t until after he left that Raoul realized the food was still sitting on the other side of the room. He stretched as far as he could with every limb and even his head. It didn’t help. He couldn’t reach it. He curled up into a ball again.

If he cried out, perhaps the Phantom would hear him. He could not be far away, and it seemed like an honest mistake. If he had left Raoul without feeding him on purpose, he surely would have mocked him rather than leaving him to discover it for himself.

But Raoul could not bring himself to shout.

The pain in his stomach was at least a point of focus. And he wasn’t totally dehydrated, though his head did hurt. He would be fine until the Phantom came again. Until the Phantom came again.

“I hope he never comes,” he whispered to the walls. But he, the sole listener, did not believe himself. His voice was too shaky, and he knew the truth. Hunger pangs were a great way to make a man love his enemy.

Christine…had she enjoyed herself? He half hoped she had—it would be better for her that way. And half hoped she hadn’t, but that was selfishness. Was she sleeping well? Was the Phantom feeding her right? For all his boasts he was a careless keeper.

He fell asleep slumped against a patch of slime.

* * *

 

The next day (or was it day? Darkness was destroying his sense of time) he spent mostly with his knees against his stomach, staring into the black towards the direction where he knew there was food. He couldn’t even see it, but he could smell it. It had a salty, meaty smell to it. The stew the Phantom had first brought him had not included meat. It made his mouth water.

He wanted to be thinking about how to escape, or at least to think of Christine and the world outside his little cell. Instead, all he could think of was food. Fresh bread with butter, newly picked apples, casseroles and quiches and pies and cakes. But mostly stew. He was relatively certain the food in the corner was stew. If he could only reach it! He would have licked it out of the pot if necessary.

When the Phantom returned that evening (morning? Who knew), he saw the crockpot sitting on the floor and laughed and laughed.

“Poor little Vicomte,” he said. “Oh dear. I did not intend to leave you without a meal, you know…else I would not have brought it. But here, I brought you bread and milk this time. I’m sure the soup is spoiling—the air down here is very humid and not very good for storing things that are cooked.”

Raoul growled. Not very loudly, though. When the Phantom handed him the milk, he immediately gulped half of it down and accepted a small chunk of bread as well.

Then he found his stomach twisting even more and he paused, breathing in and out deeply.

“You must be rather miserable down here, Vicomte,” the Phantom said.

Raoul glared at him. He reached out his hand for another piece of bread, but the Phantom had put it down on top of the crockpot and had begun to pace.

“I, on the other hand, have been having a wonderful time. The best three days of my life!” He threw out his arms. “Christine cannot have enough of me now, you know. I never knew I could be such a Don Juan, but it seems having had me once she needs to have me constantly. Almost too tiring, but how could I mind?”

Raoul wanted to cover his ears. He resisted the impulse.

“I woke up this morning to find her already awake,” the Phantom said. “She was naked, of course, from last night. And she was looking at me with a wicked air of mischief. She pulled the blankets off both of us so that I could see her. All of the candles were lit, so I could see everything well enough.”

He paused in his pacing and turned towards Raoul. “Have you ever seen Christine naked, monsieur?”

“Have some decency,” Raoul hissed.

“Ah, but I cannot hold myself back! You would feel the same if you had seen her.” He stepped closer to Raoul, then knelt on the floor in front of him. “She is too beautiful for words, but I will try nonetheless. Her skin is all the color of the inside of a peach, though that might have been the candlelight, I’ll grant. Of course it’s a bit paler towards her stomach, but not by much. I kissed her on her pale ribs, right at the spot where the two halves of her ribcage join together.” He smiled. “The flesh beneath her ribs was soft and full, but her ribs were hard. I kissed her between her breasts, afraid to even put my hands on her. Would you not have been afraid, monsieur? As you said, it is to put your hands on an angel.”

Raoul pressed himself back against the wall and crossed his legs. He still couldn’t cover his ears—that would have been to concede defeat—but he laced his hands around the back of his neck.

He’d never had sex with Christine or any other woman. This was a little how he pictured it, when he did picture it. But he usually cut himself off at around this point...except very occasionally, and then only in private, where his fantasies could not be judged.

“She told me I did not have to be afraid,” the Phantom said. “And then she allowed me to kiss her on her breasts. I was afraid despite what she had told me, but I did so. Then she grew impatient with my slowness, for she was beginning to moan and writhe, and she told me…but monsieur. Are you uncomfortable?”

Raoul had begun to squirm. In fact, he was.

“I am sorry if…oh.”

In an instant, the expression on the revealed half of the Phantom’s face entirely changed. He had looked smug and challenging until this point, inching closer to Raoul with every sentence. But now his gaze had been drawn to Raoul’s fidgeting legs, and he had noticed Raoul’s…difficulty.

“Monsieur,” the Phantom said. He stopped speaking then, apparently shocked into speechlessness. Apparently he could dish out lewdness but he could not take it in return.

Raoul’s mouth twisted. He said, “I’d like some more bread.”

“It seems to me you have larger problems,” the Phantom said.

“Just be quiet and give me some bread.”

The Phantom handed him a very small piece of bread. Then he cleared his throat and with a carefully composed face he said, “Would you like me to go on with the story?”

“No.”

“Well, then of course she spread her legs for me. The problem was she could barely hold still! So I had to hold her legs myself, my hands on her thighs…” the Phantom glanced down. “Your problem does not seem to be improving.”

“There might be a reason for that,” Raoul said with a slight hiss. He shifted his legs, trying to get comfortable. The Phantom reached out and pushed his legs down so that he was sitting in a kneeling position with his legs a few inches apart.

“I could help you.” He raised his left eyebrow.

Raoul told himself he should probably pull away. He could feel that the Phantom would leave him alone if he asked. Of course, if he was insistent enough the Phantom might leave without giving him the rest of the bread, and he was still starving.

And if he spoke up at all, the Phantom would stop touching him. And it did feel sort of nice.

“Do you know what Christine said when we were done?” the Phantom asked in a low, vibrant voice. But judging by his eyes—intensely focused on Raoul’s face—he wasn’t really thinking about Christine.

“What?” Raoul said. He laughed, half choking on the laughter. “That she loved you? That she had forgotten me?” That would please the Phantom, no doubt. And it would be a good way to mock Raoul at a time like this.

“She said I could play her like a piano,” the Phantom said. “And then she laughed.” He smiled, almost kind. “You’d like someone to play you, wouldn’t you? I could make it good for you. And you could go right back to hating me when I was done.”

Raoul let out a shaky breath. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Don’t you?”

Raoul shook his head. It was a lie, but it sounded true. Plausible, at least. No, he would need to make the Phantom go away so he could go back to being sane. So he said the most insulting thing possible.

“I think you are the one who wants something from me.”

The Phantom cocked his head as if it were the first time this had occurred to him, despite the fact that he had been propositioning Raoul just moments before.

“You do,” Raoul said, suddenly certain of it. A moment ago he’d been certain the Phantom was just playing games with his mind. But now, when the Phantom tried to deny it…he would not deny it otherwise. Raoul swallowed and lifted his chin. “You already have Christine, don’t you? You already beat me. Stop being so petty and leave me alone.”

“Christine,” the Phantom muttered. He smiled contemptuously. “I do have Christine. There’s always that. But you have no one, Raoul. You are alone and you could die here very easily. All I would have to do is walk away.”

“Are you threatening me?” Raoul said incredulously.

“No,” the Phantom said. He leaned even closer to Raoul, talking in his very ear. “I don’t want to kill you, Raoul. I want to take care of you. But I can only do as much for you as you let me.” He squeezed Raoul’s legs. “This is what you want it to be. Tell me, don’t you want someone to touch you? You must be lonely here.”

It had only been three days, maybe, since Raoul had found himself down here. Perhaps he had no excuse. But how much longer since he had let his guard down? Christine had not let him touch her since the beginning of Don Juan Triumphant’s rehearsals, her mood swinging from angry to frightened from day to day, but never willing to let him comfort her and never willing to let him confide his own fears. That was not her fault, of course. It was no one’s fault, really, that for the past three months he had been living a nightmare—or if anyone’s fault, it was the Phantom’s. But whoever’s fault it was, Raoul did feel lonely, and he felt tired and hungry, and maybe the Phantom had been trying to kill him only a few nights ago but tonight he had given Raoul bread.

“Touch me,” Raoul said, very quickly.

The Phantom’s hands inched another centimeter up Raoul’s legs before pausing. “Say it again, Raoul?”

“I want you to touch me,” Raoul said, swallowing. “Like a piano. Like you said.”

The words that had sounded seductive from the Phantom sounded incredibly awkward coming out of his own hesitant mouth. But the Phantom didn’t seem to think so. In a few efficient movements he had Raoul’s pants open and was reaching inside, eyes glittering in the light of the lantern.

Raoul didn’t touch the Phantom back. He didn’t do anything, really, except grip at his chains in an attempt to hold still, and bite his lip trying to keep sound from coming out. It was stupid. The Phantom could clearly tell he was enjoying it, and while his hands worked on Raoul his eyes never left Raoul’s flushed face. But for some reason he felt if he only acted stoic, like this was as simple a bodily function as eating or sleeping or any other necessity, maybe that was really all it would be. Maybe the Phantom would believe he really had only wanted to get off because of the dirty talk, and not suspect how good this made Raoul feel, how afraid he was of the moment when the Phantom would leave, when everything would be black again…

He came very quickly. It was soundless. He felt vaguely proud of himself, though not at all satisfied. As he panted, he watched the Phantom wipe his hands off on a handkerchief, and then bend over to wipe Raoul off as well, and refasten his pants.

* * *

 

After that, the Phantom started bringing food more often. It might have been three times a day now, though Raoul was never good at keeping track of days because of the darkness and the Phantom never specified. He decided to pretend it was always three times a day, though sometimes it was more irregular.

Officially, Raoul planned on escaping still. The problem was he didn’t have much of a plan. He didn’t know where Christine was being kept—besides which, he had no idea how to get out of his cuffs. He didn’t know how to pick locks and the Phantom never had the keys on him, although a couple of times Raoul had come close to frisking him to check.

Unofficially, there was another reason Raoul hadn’t been thinking as much about escaping and that was that the Phantom was very distracting.

It wasn’t always sex. Sometimes the Phantom simply brought him food and told him Christine was well. On days like those, when he was feeling practical, he might bring a bucket of slightly warmed water and dump it on Raoul’s head, telling him he was getting filthy. He didn’t bring a change of clothes, though—with the cuffs it would have been far too difficult to maneuver that. On other days he would go on a long rant about what he had been doing with Christine lately without offering any kind of recompense for Raoul’s attention. On those days he always seemed angry, and Raoul always worried he would hit Raoul, though he never did. On some days he seemed in more of an intellectual mood and even talked about his latest compositions and the news from around the opera house, mentioning neither Christine nor sex. Those days were usually good.

When there was sex, it was always very quick and very one-sided. The Phantom would get Raoul off efficiently, usually with his hands, occasionally with his mouth. Afterwards he would occasionally caress Raoul but only very briefly, and he would not talk about what they had done.

It was about three weeks before the Phantom kissed Raoul the first time. He did it right after coming in, before either of them had even said anything. And he was, once again, very quick about it. A bare peck before darting back and beginning to talk about food.

The second time they kissed, it was Raoul who started it. The Phantom had just finished getting him off and he was beginning to pull away when Raoul grabbed his waist and pulled him back and kissed his lips. That kiss lasted a little longer. Raoul had never had sex before, but he had kissed a few times—Christine and one or two others, though Christine was the only one that mattered. This felt more like betraying Christine than the sex ever had, but he told himself later that it didn’t matter. As the Phantom had said, Christine wasn’t here.

And even if she was very nearby, he rationalized, she was doing the same as him. He doubted she would blame him for any of this.

But the truth of the matter was that in the moment of kissing the Phantom he didn’t think about her at all, and lately he thought about her less and less. She was perhaps only a few rooms away, but that was another universe. The Phantom was the only one in this dark world with him, his only resort, not just his last.

So more and more he let himself enjoy what he could about the situation. So it was black a lot. Plenty of time to think and get more sleep than he had in a long time. He savored what food he got. He enjoyed the Phantom’s company. There was nothing wrong with that.

* * *

 

It had been about a month and a half, maybe. A hard maybe, there. Raoul hadn’t really been trying to keep track of time in the first place and as the days went by it had become impossible.

But if he had to estimate it, it had probably been about a month and a half when he asked the Phantom, “Are you still having sex with Christine?”

It was in the middle of a conversation about music. It had probably been a few weeks since the Phantom had discussed relations with Christine at any length, now only mentioning that she was still well and still thought Raoul was free upstairs. The Phantom seemed taken aback.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. “Nearly every night. And do you still object?”

Raoul shrugged. He felt like he probably should. The Phantom had backed Christine into a corner and it wasn’t right…but there was nothing Raoul could do about that. And truthfully Christine was hardly on his mind just now. Really he was just thinking about the sex.

“If you have sex with her so often, why do you bother with me?” he asked.

“For your enjoyment,” the Phantom said.

Raoul laughed and shook his head. “Please. It’s obvious you want to do it and you like it. But Christine should already satisfy you enough, and you never ask me to do anything to you. What’s the point?”

The Phantom said, “Really, you could say that is all. It gives me no pleasure to keep you here in the dark, though it is necessary. One could say I have grown fond of you. Pleasuring you is…enjoyable.”

“Is that so?” Raoul said.

“You are very reactive. One could call it gratifying.”

Raoul nodded. He had grown less careful about not reacting to the Phantom’s touches over time, and now he practically melted, though he doubted there was anything about his graceless moaning to evoke the Phantom’s aesthetic enjoyment. He said, “You are the only man who’s ever touched me.”

The Phantom snorted. “Yes, I had assumed your preferences did not lie in that direction.”

Raoul said, “No, the only person too. No woman has…” He shrugged. Now he was embarrassed. He had never told the Phantom this before, and he wondered if it was a good idea. He had spoken too carelessly.

“Really?”

“My family would have murdered me.” Besides, he had been waiting for Christine. He had always hoped to find her again. But he did not want to talk about that right now.

“So I was your first.”

“Yes,” Raoul said. He shifted forward slightly, made the same offer he’d already made a couple times, though he was never quite sure why. “I could reciprocate, if you want. I know you have Christine…”

“Yes,” the Phantom said quickly. “That would be unnecessary.”

Sometimes the Phantom almost seemed nervous lately. About Raoul’s comfort, or about Raoul’s advances at times like this. Nervous, guilty. Raoul wondered whether something was going wrong with Christine, or whether keeping someone captive long term just wore on him.

He touched Raoul today, but not in a particularly sexual manner. Only, as Raoul ate, he massaged Raoul’s back. Which had a permanent kink in it thanks to the extremely short chains (he could never really get comfortable), so Raoul was very appreciative. In the long run it wouldn’t help at all but for the moment it was heavenly.

“You like this, now,” the Phantom said.

Raoul glanced at him over his shoulder in annoyance. There was no way to enjoy a massage while being guilt tripped about it.

The Phantom pulled his hands away, then hesitantly rested one on Raoul’s shoulder again. He smiled a small, sad smile. “You know, I always intended to ruin you.”

“I didn’t think otherwise.”

“I shouldn’t have,” the Phantom said. “I should have killed you that first night. That would have been cleaner.” He sighed. “Now I fear you have ruined me as well.”

Raoul made a face at him, which he ignored. Instead, he took a key out of his pocket—which Raoul definitely hadn’t noticed earlier—and reached out and…

Unlocked the cuffs. All four of them.

Having done so, he carefully eased them off Raoul’s wrists and ankles. Raoul hissed. There were sores there, and the skin was tender. It hurt to have them move. And then the Phantom put the cuffs down on the floor next to Raoul and stepped away.

Raoul said, “What are you doing?”

“Setting you free, Vicomte,” the Phantom said. “This arrangement, pleasant as it is…” He shook his head. “It is best to end this. You must return to the surface, to your life.”

Raoul stared at him.

Even though he’d pictured escaping many times, even though he’d sometimes begged the Phantom to let him go, actual release…he had given up on it now. This was. He swallowed. It was an anomaly in an ordered life, one that surely could not be real, could only be a hiccup and not really the end.

The Phantom, impatient, pulled him to his feet and led him to the door. It opened to reveal a hallway, still made of stone, with lanterns set in the sides. More light than Raoul had seen in ages, though still very dim. He blinked with a sudden sense of agoraphobia. Even a narrow hallway felt too wide.

“Come on,” the Phantom said. He pulled Raoul along with him, and they were suddenly walking very quick. Much too quick for Raoul, who in the past month and a half had been able to stand but not walk more than a foot or two. His legs were cramped, and their muscles were almost gone. He tripped again and again. The Phantom steadied him, but refused to slow.

There were winding tunnels and stairs, all dimly lit, practically the same. And then the Phantom opened one final door to brilliant light and shoved Raoul through it. He slammed it shut behind him. Raoul turned, squinting, eyes watering. He couldn’t see the door he’d come through. The Phantom was gone. His fingers traced the wall hopelessly, helplessly. “Phantom?” he muttered. He cleared his throat and called out, “Phantom?”

A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.

It was little Meg Giry.

He stumbled back against the wall, gasping and blinking. He hadn’t even considered it would be anyone but the Phantom. But now, he realized he was no longer in a lit tunnel, no longer in a tunnel at all. No, he was in a hall in the middle of the Opera House. Vaguely he recognized the wallpaper through hazy eyes. But then…but then…

His fingers still scrabbled against the wallpaper frantically. He was beginning to lose his breath.

Meg was staring at him with wide eyes. She seemed as shocked as he was. But when she spoke, her voice was gentle. “Monsieur le Vicomte,” she said.

He nodded, unable to trust his own voice.

“You’re alive,” she said.

He nodded again.

She nodded back, eyes still wide. “I’m glad,” she said. “We all thought you were dead.”

He shook his head.

She said, “Christine will be glad to hear of it. She said the Phantom had killed you. There was no body, but she was certain. She will be glad.”

She took his wrist in her hand and gently pulled him away from the wall. He let her lead him down the hall, taking up the task where the Phantom had left off. It didn’t matter where they were going, or what he was going to do now. Only… “Christine?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, glancing back at him with a smile. “She was very upset.”

“What…when was this?”

“Two months ago, monsieur. When you went down through the tunnels and didn’t come back.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christine's been spending the last two months mourning Raoul. Only apparently he isn't dead anymore.

The last two months had not, for Christine Daae, been very good ones.

They had started with her emerging from the bowels of the opera house with a wedding gown on, skirt dirtied by canal water, emerging, moreover, straight into the hands of the police. The police were searching the tunnels to find her, they told her, and they were glad to see her safe. They did not ask her right away about Raoul. It was not their assumption that she would know anything about where he had gone—the tunnels under the opera house were vast, after all. Instead they sat her down and got her a warm drink and asked her about the Phantom.

She told them what she had told them before about her history with the man. She told them how he had come for her tonight, how he had dragged her off to his lair and forced her to change her clothes and told her he would keep her down there forever.

“You escaped,” one of the police officers said.

“No, I did not escape,” she said. She repeated this several times. She had not escaped. She had not come close to escaping. She had been weak, barely resisting the Phantom’s every order, afraid to even contradict his commands. He might have forced her to do anything then, with the temper he was in. But then Raoul had shown up.

“The Vicomte de Chagny?”

He had found his way down there, but he had been weak—not spiritually tremulous, as she, but physically fatigued and on the edge of collapse. He had told the Phantom he would fight for her, and there had indeed been a fight. It had lasted barely thirty seconds before he ended up with a lasso around his neck.

“And then?”

Christine said, “The Phantom killed him.”

The police were all very taken aback. Some gasped and stared, while others, half expecting the answer, began a stream of swearing. They said he had been foolish to go down there, stupid to face a maniac alone, he should have waited for them to come with him, should have known better, should have known better…

And Christine sat there trembling, wondering when they would see through her. That was not when the Phantom had killed Raoul. Raoul had still been alive when she left—the Phantom had said he would spare her the sight. But he would be dead by now, certainly. And she could not bear to tell these men, upright and brave men of the law, the truth of what she had done, how she had betrayed her lover. She was as much a murderess as the Phantom.

She told them the Phantom had let her go then, after threatening to kill her too if she took up another lover. They questioned her, doubting he would ever release her if he was so violent a man. She came up with explanations. And, though it took days and many retellings of the story, they were eventually satisfied. They told her that they were deeply sorry for her loss, and that if the Phantom contacted her again, she should come to them immediately. And that, while they had given up on searching the tunnels, windy and dangerous beyond belief, they were still on the lookout for the Vicomte de Chagny’s body, and they would let her know when it was found.

On that score, Christine was less confident than they. She had expected, at first, that Raoul’s body would turn up immediately—hung from a rafter or perhaps draped over a chair in her dressing room, obviously somewhere it would cause the maximum amount of panic and chaos. But now that it had been about a week and the body was still gone, she thought the Phantom would probably never bring it to the surface. It was possible he still cared about Christine’s feelings despite her leaving him, and that he thought seeing Raoul’s body would disturb her as much as seeing Raoul’s death. It was also possible he was angry at her and had kept Raoul’s body as a final act of vengeance against her love affair. She wasn’t sure which motivation would be more in character, or which it truly was—but either way, she doubted very much the body would surface now. No, Raoul would rest in the crypts of the opera house forever. She hoped he would rest in peace.

And now that the police had stopped harassing her, it was beginning to sink in.

Raoul was dead. Raoul de Chagny, the boy who ran into the sea to fetch her red scarf, was dead. The man who had attended nearly every one of her performances, the man who had embraced her on a snowy rooftop, the only person in the world foolish enough to propose to her. He was dead. He was gone. He wasn’t coming back.

She thought perhaps it might be appropriate to visit the de Chagny estate and explain things to his mother and his household. But from what Raoul had told her they had never approved of her anyway. Showing up now, when she had caused his death, would only be disrespectful.

So she sank into solitude. She had quit her job at the Opera Populaire, of course. The Phantom having released her, she no longer had any reason to stay in that haunted place. The managers tried to persuade her—actually tried to persuade her!—to complete the season’s run of _Don Juan Triumphant_ , which had stirred a lot of curiosity in the upper class because of the incident. She refused politely because she didn’t think they were worth insulting. She turned in her resignation papers and walked out onto the streets a free woman.

She was still staying with Mamma Valerius, who was a kind woman. She cooked Christine’s food and for now did not ask about rent or the future. In her opinion the world ought to look after orphans and widows, and in some ways she saw Christine as both. And Christine soaked in that kindness.

She spent a month and a half doing absolutely nothing. But sooner or later, she knew it would all have to end. She couldn’t forever live off charity, and being in Paris was beginning to get to her. It was a city filled with happy thoughts for her, thoughts of the Angel of Music’s guidance, thoughts of Raoul’s love. Such thoughts floated around the streets, now and then bumping into her when she was out for a walk. They did not suit her anymore.

And so she made plans. She found a ship leaving for Sweden within a month. She bought herself a single ticket—it was expensive, but she had enough left from the gifts of patrons who had enjoyed her performances in _Hannibal_ and _Il Muto_ that she could pay. She began to put her affairs in Paris in order.

And then, three days after she had bought the tickets, a familiar face showed up at her door. Madame Giry, in the flesh. She said she had news.

“I do not want to hear from the Phantom,” Christine told her as soon as she had come in. “He told me he was done with me.” She shivered. Would he rescind his promise? Well. She was already going to Sweden, far out of his reach. She would be safe no matter what he did, no matter what game he wanted to play this time.

“I have not heard from the Phantom any more than you have,” Madame Giry said. “This news comes from my daughter, Meg. She was the first to see him…though of course I have my own eyewitness as well, and the witness of many at the opera house now. I think the news will travel quickly. I wanted you to hear from a friend.”

“What news?” Christine said.

“Monsieur le Vicomte has returned to the land of the living,” Madame Giry said. “My daughter found him today.”

Christine blinked. So the Phantom had decided to leave his corpse in the opera house after all, for discovery by Meg. That seemed an odd choice.

“He has talked very little thus far,” Madame Giry continued. “But he told the police he had been in the cellars this whole time. I suspect they will want to speak with you again, so you should be warned. But he is alive. He is with his family, now, at his estate. He is not entirely well—I thought you should be warned.”

“Stop,” Christine said.

She took a deep breath and ran over what Madame Giry had just said. Police, yes. Cellars, yes. Family…yes…refused to talk. Not entirely well. ALIVE.

She stumbled into the parlor and sank down on the loveseat. Madame Giry followed.

“You are distressed.”

“You say he is alive?”

“Alive, and likely to recover. Though he has been through quite an ordeal—two months with that beast at his throat. He seemed harrowed. But he is alive.”

“Alive,” Christine said.

It should have been more surprising. But it had been more difficult to accept that he was dead in the first place. A man of such vitality, such passion and warmth…no, he was alive and that was natural and right. But that he was back, that she could see him again…

“Alive,” she repeated. She stood. “I must go see him, Madame Giry. You must excuse me.” And she went to fetch her coat.

* * *

 

Madame Giry talked her out of going to the de Chagny estate immediately. It was not, she told Christine, proper or sensitive to the situation. Raoul had been missing for two months and had only been back for a few hours. Christine’s appearance would probably overexcite him, too, and after what he had been through he would need rest.

Christine listened and obeyed. She was willing to wait exactly two days. And then she put on her coat after all and headed out.

It was almost summer. Spring had arrived with the debut of _Don Juan Triumphant_ , far too timidly mild for the season of such tragic events. The day wasn’t hot but the sun was out in force, and it was pleasant weather for a walk. Christine would have gone for a walk today without this motivation, probably, and spent the entire time trying to forget Raoul. Now she had to actually think about him, which was almost as hard.

What was she going to say to him? “I thought you were dead.” “I left you for dead.” “I told the Phantom he could kill you.” Somehow she didn’t think he would want to hear any of those things. But what excuse did she have to give?

She did not know what the Phantom might have done to him in this time, either. Madame Giry had reported he was thin and malnourished, but little else. She wanted to know what had happened to him. She wanted to tell him that whatever it was, it was not what she had wanted. No, she had never wanted this.

It would have been easier if he had stayed dead.

She hated herself for thinking that.

When she arrived at the de Chagny estate, the servants who admitted her gave her ambivalent looks. She was left sitting in the parlor for a long time. Eventually Madame de Chagny came out to meet her.

“You are the girl my son is in love with,” she said.

Christine nodded.

“They say you are good onstage,” Madame de Chagny said. “And that you are the one who got my son in trouble in the first place. Tell me, what do you have to say to that?”

“I am sorry,” Christine said. She swallowed. “I should have protected him.”

Madame de Chagny gave her a long look. At last she said, “He’s been asking for you. I’m not sure he’s even totally aware of his surroundings. He doesn’t ask for me. Only for two people. One of them is you.”

Christine nodded solemnly.

“The other,” said Madame de Chagny, “Is the Phantom.” She smiled drily. “So you see, it’s not exactly a recommendation.”

Asking for the Phantom. Christine’s throat felt dry. What could the Phantom have done to invoke such a dependence? He had Raoul in his grasp for two months. Had it been kindness or cruelty that had brought Raoul to this point? She could imagine it being either. The Phantom had a violent nature, as the falling of the chandelier had demonstrated, as the strangling had demonstrated, and he hated Raoul with a burning passion. But he could be as manipulative as he could be blunt, when he wanted to be. How many times had Christine missed her Angel of Music, even in recent days? Even knowing what he was didn’t stop her from missing his guidance, the sense that when he was around everything was under control.

Madame de Chagny was waiting for her to speak.

Christine said, “I did not hurt your son. The Phantom is my enemy as much as his.”

Madame de Chagny raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard otherwise.”

“Then you’ve heard lies. The Phantom kidnapped me too. He wanted to…do certain things to me.” Christine shuddered. “Raoul protected me from him, and so I caused his suffering in part. I owe him my life.” Or at least her freedom. “Please, let me see him.”

“Tell me you will say nothing to upset him.”

“Nothing.” Though her presence might upset him enough, if he remembered what she had done.

“Very well,” Madame de Chagny said. “I will take you to him. But I will be with you the entire time, and if you misstep I will make sure you never see my son again.”

With this threat, she led Christine to a bedroom on the upper floor of the house. And Christine walked inside, and there was Raoul.

He was on the bed, but he was not lying down. He had curled up against the headboard, sitting where the pillow should have been. But he had thrown the pillow to the end of the bed. He wasn’t wearing any blankets, only a long, white nighshirt. His knees were pulled up to his chest and his face was resting on them.

Christine said, “Raoul?”

He looked up.

His hair was longer than when she had seen him last, but not by much. More noticeably he had grown a small beard that apparently no one had gotten around to shaving yet. His skin was pale, very pale, much paler than his usual tan. The tan was generally considered less than genteel for a Vicomte, but this kind of paleness was simply unhealthy.

One thing made her glad, however. She had worried, based on Madame de Chagny and Madame Giry’s descriptions, that he had gone out of his mind. But while it seemed odd for him to prefer curling up in a corner to bed rest, and while his face seemed a bit too thin, his eyes focused on her easily. Definitely he was aware of his surroundings then. She smiled a small smile, nervous. But he had asked for her to come. He had wanted her.

His smile in return was far brighter than she deserved.

She went to his side. Madame de Chagny said, from the door, “Lie down, Raoul.”

Raoul blinked and nodded. “Sorry. Right.” Stretching his limbs achily, he pulled the sheets back and tucked himself under them. He slowly lowered his head down onto the bare mattress. Christine handed him his pillow and he laughed.

“I know I look crazy,” he said to her.

She leaned in to kiss his forehead, but he flinched away. Immediately she backed up. She glanced at Madame de Chagny, who was glaring at her.

“I’m sorry,” Raoul said. “I…I’m very glad to see you.” He reached out his hand, and she hesitantly took it. He gripped her hand hard.

He said, “I’m a little confused.”

“You can ask me anything.”

“Have you been…free? Up here? Since the last time I saw you, I mean.” He coughed. “It seems so long ago now.”

“I’ve been free,” Christine confirmed. She squeezed his hand. “I’ve been with Mamma Valerius. I haven’t seen the Phantom since…well. Since I saw you last.”

“Ah,” Raoul said. “Ah. Ah.” He frowned in concentration, then said, “Have you been happy, up here?”

Christine glanced at Madame de Chagny again, but found no clue of what she ought to say. What was the right answer in a situation like this? No, Raoul. I’ve been going out of my head with grief because I thought you were dead. It couldn’t be right. After all he’d been through, her own sufferings were insignificant.

She stroked his hand with her free hand and said, “I’ve been well.”

“All right then,” Raoul said. “That’s all right. That’s good.”

He allowed her to sit on the side of the bed, though he moved slightly away from her when she did so. It could have been taken as him merely making room for her, but she could tell by the look on his face that it was a bit more than that.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Raoul said abruptly. “What has been going on in the opera house?”

“I hear they finished Don Juan as planned, since they had nothing else prepared. And now they are rehearsing _La Traviata_. It opens next week.” Christine now wished she had paid more attention to the goings on there. Of course Raoul was curious—in the months before he had been taken, he had made the opera house his life. Or rather, he had made Christine his life, and the opera house had come as part of the package.

Raoul nodded. “The Phantom told me that.”

Then why had he asked her? Perhaps he wanted more detail, but she had nothing more than that to give.

“If you are free, then have they picked you to play Violetta?” Raoul asked. “She would be in your range. I would love to hear you sing her.”

Christine shook her head. “La Carlotta.”

“Carlotta?”

“As usual, Raoul. She is the prima donna, after all.”

“Yes, but for such a young role? And you know you are as good a diva as her, Christine. Unless they are blaming you for the Phantom’s actions…”

“I have quit opera,” Christine said.

Raoul started. Then, smiling, he said, “But Christine, you used to say it was your passion.”

“One could say I have lost my taste for it.”

“Because of the Phantom?”

Christine nodded. “He said he would not bother me anymore. But I cannot trust him to keep his promise. Besides, the opera house has a bad aura to me now.”

“Keep his promise,” Raoul muttered. In a louder voice, he said, “He does seem to lie on occasion.”

“He told me he was going to kill you,” Christine blurted out.

That probably hadn’t been the best thing to say so soon. But she was sure he knew she was the one who’d spread the news of his death. And if they were talking about the Phantom lying, this was sort of a big one.

Raoul said, “Because of the choice he gave you?”

Oh. He knew about that after all.

Glancing at Madame de Chagny (who would hate her if she found out), she said, “Yes. I…”

“I wonder why he kept me then,” Raoul interrupted.

His hands were clenched in the blankets, his gaze pensive. Christine swallowed. Apparently this was not the time to apologize.

It was soon after this that she left. Madame de Chagny insisted. But Raoul told her to come back soon, very soon—tomorrow if possible. And she told him she would.

* * *

 

It was then that Christine did something perhaps a little ill advised.

She went to the Opera Populaire.

It was her intention, there, to find Meg Giry and the ballerinas and ask them what they knew about Raoul’s reappearance, since apparently they had seen him first. He might have told them things he had not yet told her. And she had to know, of course, if he had told them anything about Christine’s actions, her abandonment, her guilt. It was stupid and petty and she knew he wouldn’t blame her but she had to know.

Meg’s story was simple. She had found Raoul in one of the hallways, clawing at the wall. He had told her the Phantom had kept him captive for the past couple months and he had only just been released. He had squinted a lot, unaccustomed to light. His voice had been shaky. Walking, he had staggered.

“As if he had come straight from hell,” Meg said, her voice solemn but her eyes dancing. She pitied Raoul, no doubt, but it was a juicy piece of gossip. A simple ballerina rarely got such a moment of glory as this.

Christine thanked her, both for the news and for taking care of Raoul. And then she should have headed straight home.

Only. It was odd being in the opera house again after such a long time. It did not feel as haunted as she remembered. The statues and paintings seemed welcoming, and the curtains’ bright red sang out to her—“Why did you leave us? Why won’t you come back and stay a while?”

She half wanted to sit in on the day’s rehearsal of _La Traviata_ , and she did not doubt they would have let her. But after a moment wandering the audience section of the theater, she forced herself to leave. No good would come of dwelling on the past.

* * *

 

When she went to see Raoul the next time, despite having had less time to think the visit over she was more prepared. She greeted him happily, and he seemed equally glad to see her. This time Madame de Chagny did not insist on staying with them either, although she gave Christine a long look before leaving. Perhaps she had approved of Christine’s conduct last time. Or perhaps Raoul had had a word with her. Either way, it was a relief to be able to speak with him in private.

He was still in bed.

“Are you sick?” Christine asked him. He didn’t seem feverish, at least. But there could have been other symptoms.

Raoul said, “Not really. But my body’s not used to moving much. So I have to bring it back to normal little by little.” He shrugged as if to belittle it. “The doctor has me doing stretches, taking very short walks, lifting weights…It’s not exactly fun, but I’m sure I’ll be walking around well enough soon.”

Christine nodded.

Raoul said, “So, how was your day?”

“Good. I spent most of it reading.” She’d been at home all day until now, halfway through the afternoon. Just like every day. It was hardly worth talking about. “You said your body’s not used to moving much?”

“That’s what the doctor said. I guess it’s accurate.”

“Raoul, what did he do to you? Why couldn’t you move?”

Raoul shrugged again, but his body had grown stiffer. He propped himself up against the headboard and deliberately relaxed his arms at his sides. “Well, I was chained up in a cell for the most part.”

“For the most part.”

“Well…actually the entire time. I could move a little, though. It’s not like I was…Anyways, yes. I didn’t walk much.”

“So you were in a cell the whole time.”

“Yes.”

Well, it was not unexpected. The Phantom had proposed for her to stay with him comfortably in his house, but he would hardly have extended the hand of friendship to Raoul. And the opera house tunnels had many odd nooks and crannies to stuff things you wanted to hide.

“I was not alone,” Raoul said. “The Phantom came to visit me often. He fed me. Sometimes washed me.” He shrugged. “We talked.”

“I’m sure he was great company,” Christine said ironically.

Raoul winced. “He was perhaps not such bad company as you might suppose. We…talked about music sometimes. And you.”

“What did he say about me?” Christine asked.

Raoul bit his lip. “He lied, actually.”

“What?”

“He told me you were down there with him and me, just in a separate area. That you’d agreed to stay. I don’t know why he said that. I’ve been thinking it over, and maybe he just didn’t want to admit he’d lost.”

Lost, hm?

Lost. He hadn’t lost. He’d taken Raoul away from Christine and driven her half out of her mind. He’d kept Raoul for two months in what sounded like a tiny cell, damage unknown. He’d made the opera house bend to his will. He’d had his play performed. And he’d only let them go when it suited him, when he decided it was no longer worth the work of making them heel.

Lost. Pfft.

Christine said, “Maybe.”

“He told me about the bargain, you know,” Raoul said. “He said you’d taken it. You’d decided to stay so I could go free. And he’d just decided to keep me instead.” He huffed out a laugh. “I thought he was the cruelest bastard…but really keeping me alive was a mercy. I suppose I was unfair to him.”

Christine waited. She waited for him to accuse her. He had thought she had suffered to save his life. Now he knew it was not true, now he knew the Phantom had been more kind to him than she. Now he would ask her what she had been thinking. Now he would ask her why.

“Christine?”

“Yes, Raoul?” Her voice was even.

“There was something I was wondering,” Raoul said. He hesitated. “Perhaps I should not ask.”

“Ask,” Christine said. “I will tell you anything you want.”

“It’s just that the Phantom said many crazy things…”

“Raoul,” Christine said. “Ask.”

Raoul said, “He said that you’d stayed to marry him, and that you were living with him as his wife. He said. He said that you’d, um. Acceded to certain demands.” He swallowed. “Certain…advances?”

“He said I’d had sex with him,” Christine said flatly.

Raoul reddened. “Yes. He was very crude about it.”

Here, at least, was an area where she could reassure him. “He never touched me,” Christine said.

Raoul nodded. “I’m sorry to have asked…It’s just that he talked about it…often.”

“Raoul,” Christine said. She touched his arm. “He never touched me. I am still yours.”

“Right. Thank you.” He didn’t seem to know what to say.

“I would have died before allowing him to do that.”

He smiled shakily, clearly relieved. “Well. I’m glad to know…Well.” He shrugged. “Really, I should not have asked. I am sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo. Couldn't leave notes at the end of last chapter because they would have ended up at the end of the entire story, so this is my first chance to rant.  
> One of my friends said, reading the last chapter, that they thought they might like this verse's Christine, even though basically everything said about her in the last chapter is lies. Well, she's definitely not the Christine Erik made up. She's got a lot more angst, guilt and anger. So I wonder if this is how my friend pictured her.  
> Anyways this chapter is probably more indicative of the fic in general, both in content/mood and in chapter length. So I hope you're liking the rhythm. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I'd be glad to hear from you.


	3. Chapter 3

Raoul had thought, when he first emerged from the basement of the opera house, that it had to be a busy day. As Meg Giry had led him through the hallways they had kept on bumping into people: ballerinas, workers on the set, backstage workers, people he recognized and people he didn't. And then she had brought him to the managers, and there had been about three other people with the managers (he couldn't remember who now, though he thought one had been Piangi), and then the police had been there within minutes of sending for them (or so it felt, though it also felt like time had suddenly sped up), and then there had been so many questions posed, millions it felt like.

He'd thought, once he got away from the crowd (which took hours, hours of interrogation and explanation and him being passed from one official to another), he'd be able to figure out what was going on easily enough, recover his peace of mind. And it was true that once he got home, things were much easier. He knew everyone there and hardly anyone spoke to him except his mother, at his own request. It was easier to concentrate, easier to think.

Except in some ways, even as the days passed, it still wasn't easy at all.

Everything was so bright. The light coming through the windows, for a starter. He had forgotten how much the sun outclassed a lantern. But more than that, his house, though refined in decoration, was full of color. The wallpaper was pastel green and blue and yellow in different rooms. The floors were wood paneled in oak, the furniture largely composed of polished mahogany. The blankets on his bed, even, were royal blue and embroidered with other colors, even if the sheets were white. White, though, might have been the worst. Pure white, unlike the filtered cream of the Phantom's mask in the lamplight, was far, far too bright. Everything was too bright.

Things were loud, too. There were more than eight people living in his house, and at any moment one of them was doing something. The cook would be clanging pots in the kitchen, the maids clanking pails of water as they mopped the floor, the butler conferring with Raoul's mother on the details of a fine task, and Raoul's mother herself entertaining some guest. And every fifteen minutes someone would come to his bedroom and check up on him only to tell him that, as one might expect, he was perfectly fine.

It was wearing.

He actually preferred to have company. It helped him to focus, at least--one person talking was better than listening to the myriad sounds around the house and one person's face was an easier focal point than trying to focus on the headboard at the bottom of the bed. He liked reading, too, which focused both his eyes and his mind. The doctor told him with an indulgent smile that he would need to be patient with his recovery and not get too bored. He was not bored. He was the exact opposite.

Then there was physical therapy. The doctor told him his body needed to recover from a long lack of activity. So he did what he was told to do. Every day he went through a series of stretching exercises. And he went for a walk outside his house, just twice around the garden.

Despite the short distance, his mother insisted on accompanying him on these walks. She said she was certain he would collapse or faint and it would be dreadful if he ended up just lying out there for hours, unable to get back up. Raoul thought this sounded ridiculous--his legs weren't that bad and his muscles, while deteriorated, were still functional--but he let her have her way. His two months of absence had shaken her and if she was a little overprotective now that he was back, it was her right. Apparently they had already begun making funeral plans--though they hadn't initially been inclined to believe the word of a hysterical opera girl, after two months it had seemed unlikely he would show up again. And so, even without a body, they had been prepared to proclaim him dead. They were very relieved he had resurrected.

So physical therapy was a trial, but he had help getting through it. The doctor said he was better off than he might have been. And, he mentioned, apart from infected sores on his wrists and ankles that would take a while to heal, he had no injuries. The household proclaimed that, after two months with the notoriously ill tempered opera ghost, to be a miracle.

Raoul pretended to agree with them. It had been no miracle, of course. While the Phantom had been moody, he had, after the initial strangling incident, never been violent. And of course Raoul remembered his voice, quiet and husky, both reassuring and terrifying at once. "I don't want to kill you, Raoul. I want to take care of you."

No, his lack of injuries was no chance occurrence. The Phantom had been far less out of control than most believed. And, Raoul believed, everything he had done to Raoul had been carefully planned. Every last bit of it.

* * *

 

Christine visited nearly every day. And every day, Raoul was glad to see her. After her initial questions about his imprisonment, she did not ask him anymore. Indeed she almost seemed to forget it. Around her, he could pretend he was only an invalid because of some disease or chance accident, pitiable but not malicious. She didn't whisper anything about the Phantom or about how really his mind was as fragile as his body, the poor dear. No, she looked him in the eyes and asked him what he had been reading, and listened as he responded.

The fourth time she visited, she brought flowers with her. A bouquet of roses, the kind he used to give her at the opera house. Red roses. He tried to remember whether they were in season or not at this time of year before giving up. If she was buying them, they probably were, and he was fuzzy on what time of year it was anyhow.

Still. "Red roses aren't the best flowers to give a patient, you know," he told her severely.

She laughed. She laughed very easily at his jokes lately. He wanted to say it was because she was no longer worried about the Phantom, and with that weight off her shoulders she could laugh as freely as she used to when they were children. Realistically, he thought she was so glad he was alive that she was willing to laugh at anything just to keep him happy. Realistically, if she acted so happy it couldn't be entirely real.

He would pretend it was.

"Red roses are a symbol of passionate love," he told her. "Unless you are trying to tell me how much you love me, they are inappropriate. Surely something else would have been better for a man getting over his illness." Because, of course, he had to pretend it was a normal illness. That was paramount.

"Monsieur, I had a reason," Christine protested.

"Ah! Then are you trying to say that you love me very much?" Raoul asked, raising his eyebrows as high as he could.

Christine shook her head.

"No?"

"Monsieur, I heard you were trying to build your muscles," Christine said gravely. "And so I brought you red roses because they are the color of blood. You must get your blood moving and grow strong again."

"You're ridiculous," Raoul said.

"What would you have had me bring? Lilies? For death?"

That joke came out a little sharp. He could tell she regretted it--she bit her lip instantly and put her hands behind her back. Waiting for a remonstrance.

"Well, you know," he said, trying to recapture the mood, "there are many other flowers that lie between the two." She was still silent. "Perhaps you have a confession to make after all?"

Christine picked up the roses. "Do you not like them?"

"No. I mean yes! I do like them terribly. I am sorry, Christine, I shouldn't have been teasing you."

Christine sighed. "Fine. I will make a confession." She bent down to his ear, for he was still in bed while she was standing. "I love you."

He felt like his face had lit on fire.

Christine smiled quietly. Then, taking the roses back from him, she stood up. She found a maid in the hall and asked her to bring a vase. Then she arranged the roses in the vase herself. Raoul watched her from behind, still in bed.

If he could walk more easily, if he were not ordered to stay in bed, he would get up now. He would walk over to her side, and he would help her put the flowers in, even though it was clearly unnecessary. Their hands would keep brushing against each other as they worked in close proximity. He might get a prick from one of the thorns. And she, seeing him wince, might take his finger in her hands and kiss the wound, and then perhaps take the finger in her mouth and suck on it, staring him in the eyes as she wrapped her lips around...

He cursed silently.

The Phantom had stopped telling him sex stories about Christine in detail about a week before he kicked Raoul out. But before then they had been fairly frequent, and always very graphic. And Raoul, raised on stories by Christine's father, had a detailed imagination. Every time, he had not been able to stop himself from picturing it. Picturing how her body would look wrapped around the Phantom's, and then, almost absent mindedly, how it would feel for her to do such things to him.

She didn't understand, really. He'd told her the Phantom had talked about it. She had probably assumed it was once or twice, and his only concern had been her fidelity. She didn't have to know anything else, and this didn't have to be an issue, if he could just get the voice in his head to shut up.

He hadn't asked the Phantom to talk about Christine, not in that way. He'd asked him to stop, actually. Every time he brought it up. But that didn't change the fact that he still fantasized about Christine now far more often than he should. He had before this whole mess only done so on occasion, and usually his fantasies never went much further than a deep kiss. Now, they always went much, much too far.

Christine was a good woman. Christine was a virtuous woman. If she knew how he was thinking about her, she would be afraid of him, and she'd be right to be afraid. He was thinking like the Phantom. He was messed up.

By the time she turned around from the vase of roses, it was perfectly arranged. She smiled brightly. "Now, don't they make your room look better?"

His room looked amazing already, after two months of absolute black. The roses, though he wouldn't make this objection to her face, were too bright. The color hurt his eyes. But he said, "You've changed the entire look."

"I think I was very nice to bring you flowers," Christine said. "And really, Raoul. When you used to bring me red roses I never made such a fuss."

Raoul shrugged. "I was never trying to hide my intentions."

"And I am?

"Well, I suppose not."

He wanted to ask her where they were with each other. On the eve of Don Juan's debut things between them had been very tentative, but he had at least an idea. They had been engaged, if only secretly. They had made plans to take down the Phantom so that they could be together in peace, and while they had not yet officially announced their engagement to Paris high society or faced the repercussions of their relationship, they had known more or less how it would go. Raoul would introduce her to his family (again--she had met his family when she was young). He would tell them about their engagement. If it was accepted, they would present Christine to society and proceed with wedding plans, though preparations might take as long as a year. If the de Chagnys insisted on making trouble, Raoul would give them an ultimatum: accept Christine or accept his leaving with Christine to live elsewhere, far away from their judgment. Either way, their plans were set.

Those plans were somewhat in disarray now. Christine had met with his mother with him not present, and he wasn't sure where that was going. Raoul wasn't healthy enough to present Christine to society or go out in public. Neither of them wanted to face another scandal so close on the heels of their latestâ€¦adventures. And then there was the fact that it had all been contingent on getting rid of the Phantom, and the Phantom, while not actively attacking them, had very much not been gotten rid of.

And it had been two months since they had spoken of any of this. Two months in which he had not even seen her. He had thought, when he was in the dungeon, that it would be very simple to take things up again when he and she escaped. They would both have been going through the same things. They would understand each other perfectly. They would work together to get out of the darkness and when they were out, they would take life up where they had left off.

He might not have been thinking very clearly at the time.

Christine said, "You're quiet today."

He shook himself out of his thoughts. "I guess I don't have much to say."

"Ah? But neither do I." Christine pursed her lips. "You should tell me what you have been reading."

"Only a boring book," Raoul said. "You know I'm not a huge fan of the classics. You should tell me a story, Christine."

"You know I don't make up stories. I only know Father's, and you already know all of those."

"I'd love to hear them again. Frankly, I've forgotten them allâ€¦my memory is not so astounding."

Christine smiled and shook her head. "Are you that desperate for amusement? You told me the other day you weren't bored."

Had he told her that? He'd been joking about his memory, but now he was unsure what he had or hadn't told her. "Well, I don't know," he said, casting about for some other subject. "I don't know...perhaps you could sing for me? It has been a long time since I have heard you sing."

Christine nodded. "Well, that at least is within my area of expertise. What song would you prefer?"

Raoul chose the first one that came to mind. "You could sing the Jewel Song from _Faust_."

Christine frowned. "Why that one? I've never sung it for you before."

"The Phantom said you were practicing it recently and..." And that he was teaching her how to sing it better, and she often sang it to him for his enjoyment. Obviously a lie. Raoul bit his lip. "Well, you could sing Elise's farewell song to Hannibal, maybe."

Christine nodded slowly. "If you like."

The first song he had heard her sing as diva. He had always thought of it as the song of their reunion. It only occurred to him as she started to sing that that success had come from the Phantom's tutelage as well, that song more a symbol of the Phantoms victory than Raoul's discovery. He pushed the thought away and hoped it didn't show on his face.

* * *

 

In the daytime, it was easy enough to stop oneself from thinking about the Phantom. Well, not easy. He would linger at the edge of one's mind, insinuating himself into one thought and another--but at least he did not hinder Raoul from his day to day business. And while he would wander in and out of Raoul's thoughts, he did not insist on Raoul's attention.

At night it was different.

It wasn't exactly that he thought he was back in his cell at night. He had a window in his room that let in moonlight and streetlights and starlight, making it still brighter than his cell had been even when the Phantom had brought in a lantern. But it was not as overwhelmingly bright as it was during the day, which allowed him to lose focus, and made the difference between his room now and his room for the past two months a little more...malleable.

And in the gray area between oversaturated color and utter blackness, Raoul wandered.

He could feel the Phantom's hand on his neck, gently pressuring his muscles where they connected to his clavicle. The Phantom's mask and bony hands made him look like a skeleton, especially when he was cloaked in shadows. But when they were together, it was always Raoul who felt stripped bare, not only of his clothing but of his skin. The Phantom was feeling a dead man, freed of societal trappings, freed of even his own person, his morality, his inhibitions. He was raw material. The fact that a pulse still beat underneath the Phantom's hand was the only oddity about his life anymore.

"Are you surprised that I am still alive?" Raoul whispered up to the Phantom.

The Phantom didn't respond. Instead, he pushed Raoul away from the wall slightly and moved his hand to the back of Raoul's neck, squeezing out some knot of tension. Raoul's body was always tension these days, and the Phantom was always leeching it out of him. It felt stupid, how it always accumulated, when Raoul was doing nothing to cause it. His sisters used to occasionally rub his back after a long day and it always felt earned. Here he had earned nothing, yet the Phantom kept on giving him things.

"I am," Raoul murmured. "I should not be alive still. I should be a ghost."

The Phantom kissed him--not on the lips, which were reserved for very rare occasions, but on the spot on his neck just under his ear. And he said, "There are enough ghosts down here already."

"You mean only you?"

"Me, my memories, my regrets. Yes, I have some. You don't need to look so surprised." He sighed. â€œYou are no ghost. You are more alive than I would have believed possible, for one who lives as I do." His hand swept absently through Raoul's hair. "That's a compliment, by the way."

"I don't live as you do," Raoul said with a snort, coming out of his reverie. "Unless you intend to tell me you have given up visiting the upper reaches of the opera house, and your bedroom is as small as..."

The hand in his hair clenched slightly. He yelped.

"Your complaining is very tiresome," the Phantom said. "As is your philosophizing. They are both undue. Do you wish to ask for better treatment?" He raised his eyebrow.

Raoul shook his head. That was one thing he would not do. Request better treatment, a bigger room or more food, from his enemy? He almost wanted to laugh. He let the Phantom touch him, feed him, even kiss him. But he would not ask for anything except his own release and Christineâ€™s. The rest was humiliating and unnecessary. He was doing well enough.

"Well then," the Phantom said. "Perhaps you should keep your mouth shut."

His hands were on Raoul's neck again. Raoul used to shudder at their boniness. Now he relished their touch. They were cold as hands went but they were warmer than these walls, especially when they had been holding the lantern. He sighed. If the Phantom preferred it, he would not say anything. Again he knew he was only raw material here. It did not matter what he thought of his situation, or even that he thought at all. The Phantom was touching him because they were both human, and there could be intimacy between two humans, and neither of them had anyone else.

Though that wasn't quite right, was it? The Phantom had Christine. No, the Phantom hadn't had Christine--that had all been a lie, Christine had been free the entire time--the Phantom hadn't had Christine, and he didn't have Raoul now, and he was...

Gone. And Raoul was back in his room, sitting on his pillow in a crouch, hands wrapped around the back of his own neck, trying to massage out a phantom soreness. The room was full of paraphernalia and furniture, very unlike the barren cell. The room was empty.

He was breathing hard. He tried to take deeper, longer breaths, and focus his gaze on some particular object. It was hard to do that in the dark. In the dark, he didn't know what half the objects in his bedroom were, and they overlapped and blocked out all sorts of the thing.

The Phantom, he told himself, could as easily be hiding behind the headboard at the bottom of his bed as anywhere else. Look at that space of wood and picture him there, pinpoint his existence. Picture his eyes on you. Now breathe...in and out, in and out, in and out. Slowly. Slowly.

Steady.

As his heart rate lowered, he stared at the headboard. Now he'd half convinced himself. He half wanted to go look behind it just to check that the Phantom wasn't really there. But the other part of him knew that imagining the Phantom was here, or at least still keeping tabs on him, was the only way he'd managed to calm down. He didn't feel like proving his half asleep whimsy wrong.

Things like this happened a lot, in dark places. Dreams, hallucinations, memories...he wasn't sure quite what they were. He thought something like that had happened once. Maybe not exactly like, but close enough. Did that make it a memory? If he had been half asleep when it happened, did that really make it a dream?

It was real, a voice whispered in his head. You didn't imagine any of it. The Phantom was here just a minute ago, touching you, taking care of you, and if you close your eyes for just a minute he'll be back...

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

His fists were clenching. He relaxed them. He laid his body back down, horizontal, the way his mother would have wanted him to. Pulled the sheets and blankets back up.

He never screamed at times like these, or made enough sound to draw anyone's notice outside the room. No one knew about them. If he told anyone, they would probably say he was having nightmares, but then, knowing what he'd gone through, that wasn't surprising. Not surprising at all, that he should still be afraid of his captor. That he should be haunted by what had happened to him.

If that were all, he could have told someone. He could have confided in Christine, at least. He thought it likely she still had nightmares too, and he knew she used to have them sometimes. She used to tell him she dreamed of the Phantom trapping her down in his lair forever, forcing her to stay in the dark as his bride. The nightmares she used to have had turned into Raoul's reality. She would not be surprised that he could not shake the bad memories, the sense of claustrophobia, the blind terror he used to have on occasion, waking up in unshakable dark.

But they were not nightmares, exactly. And he was haunted by the Phantom, yes, and the captivity had worn him down, of course, but he knew that he was equally haunted by the present. By the Phantom's absence. By the irregularity of his days when he used to be solely governed by mealtimes and visits, an easy schedule enough, and by the little details that constantly called his attention and made it waver. He hated the thought of his cell and he wanted to crawl back into it. Tell the Phantom he would never try to escape if the Phantom would only touch him one more time.

Sometimes, when he came to himself after an episode like this one, he was achingly hard. Christine had said she would have died before allowing the Phantom to touch her. And Raoul believed it.

"Keep your mouth shut," the Phantom had said. Unless it had been only his mind's creation.

It was good advice either way. If he ignored these episodes, if he ignored his own longings, he was sure they would have to fade sooner or later.

Picturing the Phantom watching him from behind the headboard, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.


End file.
